Suicide Squad Director Explains Why Slipknot’s Backstory Was Cut

Warner Bros and DC Films have finally released the third movie in the DC Extended Universe, and even with early reactions pointing to Suicide Squad possibly becoming the saving grace of sorts for the franchise, the critical response has been less than enthusiastic. Still, even with the mixed reactions there have been enough good things said about the film to keep audiences interested in seeing it. One of the selling points for the movie is bringing six bad guys together to fight for good, but they are not doing this of their own free will. Instead, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) implants each of them with a chip that will blow off their heads if they step out of line.

Given the movie’s title, casualties were to be expected and the first casualty occurred early on in the squad’s first mission. Thanks to Captain Boomerang’s (Jai Courtney) charm, Slipknot (Adam Beach) was convinced to try and break away from the squad to be free – a plan that put a swift end to Slipknot’s brief appearance in the movie. Slipknot is the only member of the team who doesn’t get a “dossier” introduction, and some have criticized the movie for making his death too obvious, and for not giving it enough impact.

While speaking on the Empire Podcast, Ayer was asked why Slipknot was the only member of the squad to not get any sort of backstory. This decision, according to Ayer, came down to time constraints and not wasting time on a character that has such a minor role in the film.

“Yeah we shot one, but after a point it became overloaded, ya know, so you have to cull and pick and choose your battles, and Slipknot gets his head blown off pretty quick, so ya know, I made a commitment early on not to try and create some kind of misdirect, because when you have that many characters every frame of real estate is priceless, and I didn’t want to invest in that real estate to create some misdirect because after opening night everyone knows he dies anyway.”

It is an understandable explanation to keep the focus on the movie with the likes of Harley Quinn and Deadshot, who are no doubt the two leads, but that should not excuse the movie killing off a character so soon after we meet him. With Slipknot’s abilities, Adam Beach has linked a history with strangling to the character, but Ayer says that this was an invention on the part of the actor, and was never part of the movie canon.

“Ya know, that might be more about his sort of personal journey to getting into the character more than anything, but I guess it does make sense if it’s a rope guy. I could see where he could make those connections.”

The Suicide Squad Blu-Ray/DVD is expected to have a multitude of deleted scenes, so if a backstory for Slipknot was shot, it may well be included. At this point, however, it seems unlikely that we’ll see much more of the character than what was shown in the theatrical cut.

Suicide Squad is in theaters now. Wonder Woman opens on June 2, 2017; Justice League on November 17, 2017; Aquaman on July 27, 2018; an untitled DC Film on October 5, 2018; Shazam on April 5, 2019; Justice League 2 on June 14, 2019; an untitled DC film on November 1, 2019; Cyborg on April 3, 2020; and Green Lantern Corps on July 24, 2020. The Flash, the Batman solo movie, and Man of Steel 2 are currently without release dates.